


No Happy Endings

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 13:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5128991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning to Skyhold, after everything in Orlais, the Inquisitor holes up in his room. He is willing to see no one, not even Dorian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Happy Endings

**Author's Note:**

> A few things before starting.  
> 1\. I have not, at the time of writing, played Trespasser, just seen a few YouTube clips. There is an avoidance of discussing anything in more than broad strokes, but for the record, this may have a few hiccups with canon. I'm all right with that, but I thought it was important to let it be known.  
> 2\. More importantly, this is my therapy fic for what happens with the Dorian romance. I was NOT happy with the development that Dorian was returning to Tevinter and wouldn't let the Inquisitor come with him. I needed the Inquisitor to say SOMETHING, have an actual reaction, and not just go along with it. So this fic is more for me, but if anyone else feels as I do, feel free to accept this for your frustrations as well.  
> 3\. The title is true of this story. If you're looking for an upbeat tale, I suggest you go elsewhere. Therapy fics don't always lead to happy endings, I'm sorry to say.

When the Inquisitor returned to Skyhold, he’d gone immediately to the medical quarters to have his hand looked at. The Mark had, miraculously, been removed. No one was speaking about what had happened, how it had happened. All that had come about as far as anyone could tell was that Anaan Adaar, the leader of the Inquisition, the Herald of Andraste, had been unwilling to speak and the mark upon his hand was gone.

Then more began to trickle out to those inhabiting the ancient stronghold. His hand had had to have been removed. There were indications that someone at Skyhold had suffered severe blood loss recently, and he’d been the only one to enter the medical ward in that time. While the healer had cited patient confidentiality, that what occurred within the ward was strictly between her and the patients, there was also an unexpected new dent in the wall that no one could explain – unless there’d been someone in the ward with the strength to do so, and there weren’t many other than Qunari, who were not common there.

A story began to float around that no one would confirm or deny, which many took as implicit confirmation – the healer had wanted to run tests upon the hand that had born the Mark, see if she might be able to undo the damage done to it. The Inquisitor had refused. The hand had to go. When she’d finally accepted that, she’d attempted to persuade him to try some of her herbal remedies for the inevitable pain, her belief that magic should not be called upon unless necessary making her push and prod and needle the Inquisitor until his good hand had been used to strike the wall, leaving an impression in the stone. The healer accepted that a mage healer would be called upon to dull the pain as she amputated the hand, likely grateful that he’d struck a wall instead of her. After the surgery, the hand had been secreted away by the recently appointed Viscount Tethras of Kirkwall to some unknown location in the Inquisitor’s name.

Afterwards, the Inquisitor had retreated to his tower. No one had seen him in the days since the procedure, or, if they had, they weren’t discussing it. Many figured that the Inquisitor’s Inner Circle had been in to see him at least on occasion, but they weren’t going to interfere with his desire for privacy and solitude. 

It then began to be noticed that there was, despite all expectations, someone who’d been denied admittance to the Inquisitor. Namely, the newly appointed ambassador from Tevinter. It was noteworthy because it had been no secret that they’d been in a relationship. Yet many had noticed that, rather than being at the Inquisitor’s side during this, Dorian had been denied and rebuffed since the Inquisitor’s return. 

Dorian had been sulking in his customary corner of the library for a while now. Few had dared to approach him, having a fear, justified or not, that he would proceed to zap them with a bolt of lightning if they even breathed wrong.

It was Cassandra who finally approached him. “Dorian.”

“Seeker,” he said, passing her barely a look. She was tempted to call what he was doing ‘sulking,’ though she had a feeling that he’d find some other term to refer to it.

Regardless, she found it irritating. “I have noticed you haven’t spoken with the Inquisitor since our return to Skyhold,” she said. 

“In case it has slipped your mind, our dear Inquisitor has not been taking visitors.” She heard the rather blatant bitterness in his voice. 

“It is my experience that you are more than willing to disregard what someone says in the event you feel you know better.” Dorian was certainly not the type to let things he found unacceptable stand without comment.

If anything, that only made Dorian’s face darken further. “Yes, well, there are some things that can’t be changed with a few well-chosen words and a smack upside the head. Though I’m fully aware that’s your preferred method of dealing with things.” He paused for a moment. “That was unfair. You have been very courteous, Cassandra. I’m merely... distracted.”

She nodded, the remark already forgotten. “I understand.”

Now he shifted uncomfortably, uncertain. “He refused to see me. I attempted to see him, both before and after... the amputation. He told me to go away both times. No more than that. He wouldn’t even look at me.”

“He is hurting, Dorian. You heard him speak of Solas’s deception. He considered Solas a friend. As did we all.” Though she said it, she knew that wasn’t the end of it.

And Dorian knew as well. “It’s more than that, Cassandra. Something else. Not to do with Solas.”

“But you do not know what specifically is the cause?” Cassandra found that unlikely. Dorian was an intelligent and observant man. She doubted that he’d be unaware of what would make the Inquisitor withdraw as he had. She thought it more likely that Dorian had chosen to avoid something. 

“He hasn’t spoken with me. How can I? I simply know that... he’s shutting me out.”

“Perhaps a different kind of ‘smacking’ would be called for, then.”

***

The pounding had resumed. 

For a week now, Anaan had kept his door closed, not seeing or speaking to anyone. He knew that he was going to need to come down in the name of food sooner or later. Anaan wasn’t even a mage, so he couldn’t draw upon the Fade for sustenance or something to that effect. He had just been unable to deal with the looks, the uncertainty. 

After all, he might have been the Inquisitor, but now, with talk of the Divine taking it over, would he have a place? Especially without the Mark on his hand. He no longer had a distinction. He was, once more, just an ‘oxman.’ Worse, he was a dagger-wielding oxman with one hand. And given the enemies the Inquisition had made over the last few years, he was so easily a target.

The pounding kept up.

He wanted to just ignore everything. In a single moment, he’d lost one of the things that had defined him, and another had been severely crippled. For a time, he’d been important. For a moment, he’d been more than just ‘an ox,’ a mercenary with no home. He’d had a future. He’d had the ability to look at things and think that he could live. Because the only thing a Vashoth mercenary really had to look forward to in most of Thedas was to be violently killed in service of some noble or another. That or swept up in the fighting between the Qunari and the Tal-Vashoth. Most of Thedas made no distinction – if you were grey skinned and had horns, you were a Qunari, and that made you an object of fear and terror and anger. Qunari were hated and mistrusted. No one wanted them anywhere near civilization. He’d had a chance that he could have that impossible dream. And it was so swiftly taken away.

Granted, he could probably try to make for a retirement now. There was still enough goodwill that he could live somewhere and hope others wouldn’t interfere with him. But that was unlikely to last. People had short memories, and Thedas had been in turmoil all through the Dragon Age. They hadn’t even reached the halfway point of the Age, and there’d inevitably be new threats, ones that made the Inquisition and its Inquisitor obsolete and forgotten. When that happened, how quickly would that non-interference burn away, how long until the people of Thedas decided that it would be absolutely acceptable to come after either the former Inquisitor, who they’d declared holy, for not protecting them, or the Qunari mercenary they deemed to be a threat? Anaan doubted it’d be a long wait.

“I am not going away!”

Anaan wished he would. He knew, though, that if Dorian was back, if he was this determined, he’d probably reach a point where he would just break the door down. The demand was in his voice, instead of his earlier gentler requests to be let in. Anaan knew his solitude was about to be intruded upon. He’d have to just get it over with.

“I will burn this door down if I have to, but... Blast it all, talk to me!”

Reluctantly, he rose and unlocked the door. While he was tempted to have the inevitable conversation with the ability to slam the door shut when he couldn’t take any more, he knew that wouldn’t be accepted either. 

“Finally,” Dorian said as he strode into the stairwell. “You’ve been hiding here for days. I-” His gaze fell upon the missing hand. Anaan had kept it bandaged, replacing them as necessary, though the mage who the healer had called upon had done much to stem the bleeding. But Anaan wasn’t ready to see the bare stump. “Oh, Amatus...” Dorian reached for the amputated hand, but Anaan pulled away. For a moment, Dorian hesitated.

“What do you want, Dorian?” Anaan asked, sounding bone-weary. Although he knew and understood that Dorian meant well, right now, he didn’t particularly desire any company. 

Dorian scowled in response. “That’s all you have to say to me? For a week now, you’ve completely shut me out, and when you finally open the door, all you’ve got to say is ‘what do I want’?” 

It was a statement meant to pick a fight, to get some kind of reaction out of him. But Anaan had no desire or inclination to give in to that. He simply sighed and strode back to the living space. Dorian followed, taking a moment to assemble another thought. And getting steadily more frustrated as Anaan barely acknowledged him. 

“What IS it, Amatus?” he demanded, though there was still concern in his voice despite the anger. “I realize that... losing a hand is no easy task, but... You’ve shut everyone out. I don’t know if this is because of Solas, but...”

“Only partially,” Anaan stated, not looking at Dorian. “Solas may have... done horrible things, plan to do more, but he’s not responsible for...” He trailed off, not sure what he was absolving Solas of responsibility for. 

Dorian was equally unsure. “Then what is it? Talk to me, Amatus.”

Unbidden, that got a harsh laugh out of Anaan. “Talk to you,” he muttered. Then he fixed Dorian with a harsh glare. “Talk to you. Like you talked to me about the Magisterium’s offer?”

For a moment, Dorian was taken aback at the venom in Anaan’s voice. “I... Is that what this is about? That I’m going back to Tevinter?”

Saying it out loud seemed to have cracked the lid on Anaan’s anger. “A decision you made without even telling me until Varric let it slip. When were you planning on telling me you weren’t coming back? When you were getting on the boat? Through your damn stone after you’d gotten there?”

“I... You didn’t say anything before,” Dorian said, though it was more to give a response while considering a more coherent response.

“I was in shock. The man who asked me, practically begged me to give him a relationship, something with more commitment than a fling in a tavern, deciding to treat this as something that he could just say a few words and distract me from the fact that he’d decided to walk away from it with barely a word.”

“I’m not ‘walking away’ from anything!” Dorian protested.

“You’re the one leaving, Dorian. You’re the one telling me that I can’t come with you. How is that not walking away? How is that not tossing me aside?”

“I... I apologize if I gave you that impression. But... you know how much it matters to me that I take this chance to change Tevinter, make it a place where no one would suffer as I did.”

“That would mean a lot more if you’d actually done something about it, Dorian. For the last two years, you’ve been here, and all you’ve done that would be ‘beneficial’ to Tevinter is cleaning up the mess left behind by the Venatori. The same group that you admit has to have some backing from the Magisterium.”

“That’s what this position will let me do!”

“This position that fell into your lap. And how would you change Tevinter? Not just amongst the nobility, how would you deal with the rampant blood magic? The slave trade? What are you going to about them? What are the policies you’re going to enact and change? What are the actually details of what you’re going to do beyond just ‘change things’? How are you and Maevaris supposed to turn this tide all on your own?”

Dorian fumed for a moment, trying to pull together a response to that. “Go right ahead, tell me how you really feel! If that’s your opinion, what kept you from saying as much before?”

“Your staying here seemed like you saying that you had given up on Tevinter, even if you were talking about changing it. You can’t change a nation from miles away. Until now, you’ve been all talk.” 

The two men glowered at one another, neither taking the next step but simmering in their anger all the same. But where Dorian was getting the full brunt of it, Anaan had been processing it since he’d come back to Skyhold. 

He shook his head. “I don’t want to fight, Dorian. I really don’t.”

“You’ve been sending mixed messages, then.”

Well, Anaan couldn’t say he hadn’t been asking for that. He sighed. “Dorian... Maybe you should just go.” If all they were going to do was fight, he didn’t particularly want to have this conversation. If it continued, he’d contemplate throwing himself off the balcony and hope he didn’t break his legs.

For a moment, Dorian looked to consider it. But he took a step towards Anaan. “Amatus... Anaan.” He rarely used Anaan’s name. He meant it as a gesture of sincerity. “I don’t want to leave things this way. I’d rather we not...” He winced, knowing that what he’d say next could easily exacerbate matters. “I’ll be... leaving for Tevinter in a few days. I’d rather we not... part on such terms.” He caught sight of the messenger stone on the desk by the window to the balcony. He found he was pleased that Anaan hadn’t chosen to smash it against a wall or just toss it into the Frostbacks, to be lost with the rock and ice.

Anaan was silent for a long moment, considering his next words. “I don’t see how things get better from here, Dorian. I don’t want to fight, and I don’t need company.”

“Like blazes you don’t. You have been locked up in here for a week, moping and brooding. And we have been through too much for a couple of poor decisions... put an end to what we have.”

But Anaan shook his head. “I don’t think so, Dorian. You want to fight now, now that it’s not you making the decision. You didn’t want one before. You weren’t offering any discussion about you going back to Tevinter, making our relationship exist only your terms. You didn’t give me that consideration.” He picked the stone up off the desk. He held it out for Dorian to take.

For a moment, Dorian stared at it. “You’re serious? After... after what we’ve been through, you’re going to just...” He hissed a Tevene curse under his breath, but the anger gave quickly to resignation – two plus years with Anaan had taught him that when Anaan had made up his mind, it would take more than an ancient Tevinter magister would-be God or equally ancient elven actual god to change it. A mere mortal like Dorian was in no position to do it. “I should have expected this, I suppose. A Tevinter and a Qunari... It never would have worked out, I suppose. My ancestors will clearly be able to rest easier, with... this ended.” He took the stone from Anaan’s hand, and, seeing no other reason to stay, he started for the stairwell. 

He hesitated for a moment, looking back. Anaan didn’t meet his gaze. With a sigh, he walked away.


End file.
